


spots of waning

by onceuponamirror



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, drabbles and headcanons oh my, i say this a lot but, the rating might change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12103197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamirror/pseuds/onceuponamirror
Summary: a series of tumblr prompts for short fics and/or oneshots





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: boss/intern au

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Technically, she’s not late today. Of course, she’s never late, so the standard of which she holds herself doesn’t necessarily apply to the average worker.

Unfortunately, that means when Betty wakes up thirty minutes behind schedule for no real reason other than the fact she was up late reading and fell asleep on top of two manuscripts again, and when she skips her usual bagel at her corner cafe, and when she almost misses her elusive G train because she’s just narrowly avoided her coffee spilling down shirt, and when that leads to a similar close call transferring trains—her mood isn’t great.

Not dour enough to not greet the guard behind the desk, but just enough to feel her hackles rise when she sees a pair of elevator doors with her name on it start to close. “Hold the door!” She calls, rushing forward.

She sees a hand on a button through the gap, and for a moment, she thinks it might be on the _close door_ button, but at the last second, the hand moves and slips between the sliding space, and the doors shift directions.

“Thank you,” she breathes, her eyes briefly falling on the owner of the hand. It belongs to a tall guy, about her age, with dark hair and a closed off expression that, on anyone else, might look vacant.

She reaches over to press the button for her floor, and finds it already lit up. “You’re going my way,” she says genially, shuffling back into place beside him.

He doesn’t respond so much as make a grunt of confirmation, which grabs her attention more than a simple okay would’ve. Betty looks over at him, a brow quirked.

He has all the aesthetic layers of a tortured soul; spots of waning moons under his eyes that bely something more carved than simple sleep deprivation, black jeans, and a thick navy jacket, lined with shearling despite the fact that autumn chill is late this year.

Then again, she was nearly late too, so perhaps she shouldn’t judge.

Despite the casual way he stands, his hands moving to a new place deep inside his pockets, his eyes flicking over to her twice before finding a spot on the circuit board and staying put, there’s an almost anxious air about him. She would know.

He’s wearing nice shoes—black oxfords, clearly once very shiny—and feels that says a lot. If Betty had to guess, she’d say he’s a new writer, about to have his first editorial meeting. He has that nervous kind of look.

The elevator dings to fourteen, which means they both get out. He heads towards the front desk, and she beelines for her office.

If she feels his eyes on her one last time, she doesn’t look back.

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Not much later, once she’s settled into her chair and only about five minutes deep into the some-odd fifteen emails that have arrived overnight—what is it with her book jacket artists and their tendencies to send in their revisions at two in the morning? She’s almost worried about them—there’s a knock at her door frame.

“Morning Midge,” Betty says, glancing up only once as her fingers clack over the keys.

“Morning!” Midge chirps back, draped halfway through the threshold. “Um, your college intern is here?”

Betty blinks. “Are they arriving today? I thought that was tomorrow,” she says, with a slight cringe. It doesn’t make a huge difference, but, well, she now regrets not stopping at her corner cafe for those bagels.

She would’ve liked to have greeted her new employee with a treat, made them feel welcomed, particularly because she knows her publishing house doesn’t offer pay for the college students who work for them.

“Today,” Midge confirms, with a sympathetic sort of grin. “Should I send him in?”

“Yes, thank you,” she replies, running a smoothing hand over the top of her ponytail. A few moments later, the guy from the elevator appears in the doorway.

This gives her pause—she does tend to have a slight problem about making assumptions, but he looks about her age, rather than the typically fresh-faced, bright-eyed, Type-A, Betty-Deux-Machina-if-she’s-being-honest look of most interns.

 _“You’re_ the college intern?” She says, surprised. If she were a person of tact, she’d realize this might not be the thing to open with.

His eyes narrow, just slightly. “This is the adult fiction department, is it not?” He replies, not moving but to lean back and check the plaque next to her door. “You’re Elizabeth Cooper?”

“You just seem a little old for a college intern,” she says, without really thinking.

“And you seem a little young to be a head of department,” he shoots back, eyebrows raised.

There’s a long pause wherein they both realize what he’s said; he sucks in a breath, and she thinks perhaps the proper response would be to be offended, but she’s not.

Instead, she laughs, and he visibly relaxes, his shoulders dropping with relief. “You’re right,” she replies, grinning, turning back to her computer in order to pull up the email with his file. “The usual head on maternity leave. She’ll be back about halfway through your internship. So you’re…Forsythe?”

“Jughead,” he corrects, a bit awkwardly.

“Gesundheit?”

“No, I go by Jughead, not Forsythe,” he says, and for the first time, she sees him smile. It’s a nice look on him, and not the kind of thing she should be thinking about with her college intern. “And I _am_ old for a college student. I got…a bit of a late start.”

She finds her own lips pulling back in a soft smile. Her whole life has been a series of deadlines—get good grades to get into the good school to get the good job to get the good money for the good house—and she admires a sense of patience in a person. Do it right, when it’s right.

She’s always early to things, always rushing, always thinking about next, that it might be nice to work with someone who takes his time.

A moment later, she realizes they’re still looking at each other, smiling, and clears her throat. “Okay, have a seat, Jughead. Let’s talk about slush piles.”

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	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sitting on the same park bench au

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He’s taken a class about city planning.

There was no real explanation for why he chose it, but he had an elective requirement to fulfill, something outside his major, and god forbid he choose between a science lab, or worse, a math class.

And, well, he’s always liked cities. Liked the way you can slip into one like one slips through a transportive, magical wardrobe; he thinks cities work like portals, taking you wherever you need to go.

Door number one is actually subway train number 6, and it takes you to a haunted realm called the Upper East Side, but also to said college classes, so tread carefully.

Door number two is a library in Brooklyn where one steals away for afternoon warmth when too broke to pay for winter heating every day.

Door number three is a neighborhood bar with his best friend and an air of timelessness to it, even when the disrupting force of best-friend’s-girlfriend begins to join them. (Eventually, he doesn’t mind. It’s nice to have a friend who gets all of his jokes.)

So, Jughead took a city planning class.

Some of it was interesting, particularly the fuedings between whose-who’s in the field, but for the most part, a lot of it was fairly boring. It’s a bureaucratic field and he’s always known law and order to represent systems of oppression, not safety, so he shouldn’t have been surprised that it didn’t really hold his interest.

After all, the class wasn’t called _Metaphysical-slash-borderline-Magical-Realism Interpretations of City Planning._ It was just called _City Planning 101._

However, it does mean that despite his best efforts to purge everything he learned from his mind post-final, he knows a lot about zoning laws.

Literally everything in city planning is about zoning. Ordinances, municipal requirements, et all. Everything must Look A Certain Way, designed the squeeze every bit of control into all, even down to the most mundane, like a lowly park bench.

This means that when he sees someone on his usual bench in Prospect Park, he knows that he has no ownership over said spot. It belongs to, and is maintained by, the city of Brooklyn.

He has no exclusive right to the bench. The blonde woman there can certainly sit on it.

Jughead knows this. And yet—he’s put in the effort to find this spot. It’s just secluded enough to not be disturbed by the average jogger, but not far away enough from the lake to not watch the people fly-fishing in the waters.

(Yes, there are such a thing as city-dwelling wild fish. Illegal to keep, but there to catch all the same.)

He doesn’t want to share the bench. Not right now, not when he comes here to be his most moody, to find a place for his most transferable of angst to filter.

Logically, he could go sit somewhere else. That would be the simple solution. But he’s had a lifetime of practicing how to make simple tasks harder for himself, so instead he takes a lap, halfway around the lake and back, hoping that when he returns, the woman on his bench will be gone.

She’s not.

Jughead is about to keep going, to keep walking until she disappears and he can have the spot to himself, when he hears a slight sniffle.

He glances around; it’s a warm, late summer’s dusk, the sky blue and pink and all kinds of forgiving, which means the park is still fairly populated. There are runners along the main road, a man with his dog about twenty feet away, a romantic picnic along the lake further down, but otherwise, the area is empty.

It could’ve only come from one person.

Sighing, Jughead turns back, just in time to see the blonde woman, who is really rather pretty now that he’s not glaring at the side of her, wiping at her face, clearly scrubbing a tear away.

He realizes he’s standing there, staring at her, and knows how much he would hate to be seen crying, let alone in _public,_ so he makes to disappear when he hears her speak.

“Guess this looks pretty pathetic, huh?” She says, with a bit of a hollow laugh.

“Not as pathetic as getting caught watching someone cry,” he admits, after a beat. The woman looks over at him, her big eyes made greener by the red rimming them.

“You wanna play the pathetic game?” She asks, a mirthless kind of look marring her face. “How about moving to a major city for a job that no longer exists?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty pathetic,” he agrees, watching as her humorless smile tips upwards into something much softer. He shifts slightly closer, so that he’s fully facing her now. “But this is a city of losers, and I got you beat, because I’m a struggling writer with three unfinished manuscripts assailing his wallet working as a barista, and I came here to mourn my creative integrity.”

The woman is fully looking at him now, her expression curious. “I moved here two weeks ago to work for this small political magazine, I think trying to be the Village Voice. However, when I showed up, I was informed that the person who had hired me had been let go themselves and their position had been absorbed into another department, and the fact that I was supposed to be starting work completely slipped their attention.”

“Shit,” he whistles. “That does suck.”

She nods. “And they no longer needed another copy editor. So I have an apartment I now can’t afford, two suitcases to my name, and I’m crying, alone, in a city in which I know no one and was told not to come to by my mother. On a park bench. I think I still win.”

Jughead finds his feet carrying him over to the bench, and hesitantly, he sits. “Yeah, okay, you win this time, but only because I think you need it,” he says, and she snorts, her palm slipping across the skin of her cheek.

He inhales. “And while I can’t really help you with the job thing, I think I’m testament to the fact that there are plenty of interim jobs available in this city. So you’ll find something to hold you over, I promise. And…I don’t know, I at least can help you with the not knowing anyone thing. If you want.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Jughead.”

She stares at him, her eyes flicking down to the extended hand. “I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be mean,” she says softly, letting out a breath.

“Books and covers, etcetera,” he shrugs. “And I’m not a real New Yorker, anyway.”

“Well, Not-a-Real-New-Yorker-Jughead, I’m Betty Cooper,” she returns, taking his hand after a smile has filled her face.

He finds himself returning it.

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	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: meeting online au

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He never set out to be a Reddit guy. The connotations there were just too fraught—maybe five years ago, the description could just bring to mind shitposts and recycled memes, but it’s 2017 and he’s trying his actual, genuine hardest to not be an edgelord.

Unfortunately, he thinks he has the predisposition for it, so he has to be careful. Especially considering what a snowflake standard he held himself to in high school. But in the same way undergrad taught him he’d never fully be a woke white dude and to fight his instincts to alt-control-delete his emotions, he’s avoided being an Internet Guy.

There’s a sense of irony with the fact that most of his interests lie in the nostalgic, anyway. He likes Kubrick films. He dresses like he personally raided Kurt Cobain’s closet. He listens to a lot of David Byrne.

But he still came of age in the aughts, so there’s a level of inevitability about his dependency to technology—particularly during the month he inherits his father’s motorcycle.

“I’m getting to old for this thing, Jug, and you’ve gotta get around town,” his father had said, tugging a plastic blue tarp off. He supposes what was underneath it could be construed as a motorcycle, but only in that it had two wheels.

“I think I’m better off with the bus,” Jughead said gloomily, his eyebrows knotted in the general direction of the bike.

“Come on, son. It just needs a little elbow grease. I’ll help you fix it up,” his father had offered, though Jughead knew better than to rely on _that._

His dad has come a long way with his rehabilitation and was there when he really needed to be, but it was the times that things _weren’t_ a life-or-death necessity that he didn’t always show up.

Still, while Providence, Rhode Island is technically a city, it’s also got a bus system designed by a four year old with a crayon.

And he’s far too principled for ride-shares, so it might not be so bad to have an alternate form of transportation. So he says _fine, Dad_ and he takes the bike, and on second thought, takes another helmet too, though he has no idea why. What, is he going to wear one on top of the other?

Still. The thing looks like it’ll dismantle itself at a slight breeze.

However, a couple hours into the manual he’s checked out from the Brown University Library, he realizes he’s in way over his head. The only part of the book he understands is the chapter that makes him realize they’re not even describing the type of motorcycle he has. Great.

From across the living room, Archie says he should google it, to which he replies, _golly, no one’s ever suggested that before,_ and in response gets a pencil thrown at his head, followed by a request to throw the pencil _back_ so he can finish his work.

Rolling his eyes and tossing the pencil back—he doesn’t aim for it to land a foot away from Archie, but is pleased when it does—Jughead pulls his computer forward. His fingers hesitate over the keys, realizing he actually has no idea what kind of bike it is. It’s small, that’s all he knows.

He shoots his dad a text asking him, but a glance at the time tells him his father is halfway through a shift at the construction site, and he’ll be lucky to hear back by nightfall.

He peruses the internet with a half-hearted attempt to figure it out, but unsurprisingly, google searches titled _small motorcycle_ and _small bike with one headlight_ and _what the fuck is this thing_ do not help.

He has a few photos on his phone of the motorcycle, so the only things he knows about it is that it’s got a slight build and the brand is Honda.

Eventually, he finds himself on a Reddit thread for mechanics and classic car enthusiasts, and decides that’s a good place to start, because the only other thing he knows about the bike is that it’s old.

Jughead makes an account and uploads his photos with the caption - **_uh, i know this sounds pretty stupid, but i inherited this bike and i’m trying to get it up and running but realized i have no idea what it is or where to start. any tips would be greatly appreciated._**

He closes his laptop, deciding he’ll use the interim time to work on his semester thesis. Between his work as a TA, the overall sufferings of being a grad student, now this stupid motorcycle which was supposed to _help_ more than hinder, and the fact that he’s caught himself spacing out over the pretty blonde in his writing seminar twice—which is just—he isn’t _thirteen,_ he should be beyond this—well, he’s a bit behind.

After a couple hours, he checks the thread. There’s a response underneath his post, from a one MiniCoop59, informing him that they’re not totally sure, but _thinks_ he owns a Honda GB500 cafe racer.

He googles it, and that appears to be exactly the one sitting in the garage, so he goes back to the Reddit tab.

 ** _yeah, this is it! thanks! now i just need to find the right manual this time lol,_** he comments back.

And he expects that to be the end of it. But when he checks his email fifteen minutes later, there’s a notification from Reddit, and MiniCoop59.

 _No problem!_ They’ve typed back. _I wasn’t sure, my area of interest is more old cars. But glad I could help._

He clicks on their username, curious to see what else they’ve posted, for no real reason other than utter and complete procrastination from his thesis.

As he expected, Jughead finds a couple posts about engines, advice about fixing up an old Volkswagen van with a wry additional comment asking if they’re planning on following around the Grateful Dead for a while. It makes him snort. There’s also, more surprisingly, a post on a thread about anxiety where they talk about the pressures of deciding if graduate school is worth it or a waste of money.

He raises his eyebrows, not only because he admires their response to dealing with anxiety and being frank about the way it manifests so that it doesn’t control you—and also because of the part about grad school. That’s definitely a question he’s asked himself, even halfway through his own second degree.

Jughead returns to the original thread.

 ** _it was,_** he writes. **_thanks again. also, hey, i’m bored and procrastinating, so i looked at your profile. ever figure out if grad school was a waste of money? been asking myself that and have no real answer._**

The response doesn’t take long.

_Haha! No, never figured it out. But too late now, I’m already enrolled._

_**same. guess that’s how they get us.** _

_Big time. Especially the Ivies, they trick you into thinking it’s so worth it! Like, if you got in *there*, you have to take that opportunity!_

**_same again. Brown should be called Green for all the cash they’ve sapped from me._ **

After that, MiniCoop59 stops answering. Jughead considers this reasonable, given that it’s almost dinner time, and if they’re at an Ivy league school like him, they’re somewhere on the east coast and thus in the same time zone.

However, they also don’t reply the next day, or the day after. It doesn’t matter, because his dad has gotten back to him, with a voicemail that confirms MiniCoop59′s answer. (His dad is still terrible at texting.)

Eventually, Jughead forgets all about Reddit, including the bike in the garage, especially the deeper into the semester he gets. He’s too busy, and he’s not going to ride the thing around in the dead of New England winter, anyway, so he stops trying to rush it.

However, as leaves start to appear on trees and he’s no longer wearing all five of his layers at once to stave off the cold, Jughead thinks about the motorcycle again, and decides it’s finally time to fix up the thing.

He checks the thread once more for the brand MiniCoop59 has given him, and heads to the campus library, his eyes flicking over the snow drop flowers peeking out of the soil. Spring is almost here.

He recognizes the woman behind the circulation desk as the pretty blonde from his fall semester writing seminar, and his throat runs a little dry. He’s done his best not to create a fantasy around someone he doesn’t know, but he hasn’t been able to get past the one time they were in a group together and she critiqued his essay so perfectly that he actually almost got turned on.

He’s pretty sure he remembers her name is Betty, because it’s such an odd name for a millennial he doubts he’d make that up. But the class was so big and they were only in the same group that one time, that he can’t be positive.

But. Well, he’s always had a thing for nostalgia, so it’s just the kind of name he’d accidentally think was the name of his crush.

“Hey,” he says, his fingers around the edge of the circulation counter. “Looking for some help finding a book.”

She glances up from her novel, her big green eyes roving over him. “Sure,” she says, her neck tilted slightly, as if perhaps trying to decide if she remembers him too, or if that’s just his imagination. She closes the book and pushes it aside, rolling slightly in her chair to face the library computer. “Do you know the author?”

“Uh, I’m actually looking for a manual,” he says, scratching behind his ear. “On motorcycles? I have the model and make, if that helps.”

She smiles, though her head is fully angled now, looking at him curiously. “It will. Let’s head over to the section and see if we can find what you’re looking for. I’m Betty, by the way.”

“I know,” he says, and immediately squeezes his eyes shut with a cringe. “I mean, we were in a writing seminar together.”

“Oh!” Betty says, standing from her chair. “I thought that was you! You’re…Jughead, right? Hard to forget that name.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah. I get that a lot. It’s still better than the alternative, though.”

As she leads him across the library, the look she passes him is a little wry. They pull to a stop in front of a shelf that has been categorized by the label MANUALS and the further sublabel of MOTORCYCLES.

Jughead pulls out his phone and finds MiniCoop59′s description. “So I was told I have a Honda GB500. Oh, cafe racer,” he says, and when he lowers his phone from his face, Betty is gaping at him.

“Oh my god, wait, are you HotDogHotDogHotDog?”

His face burns bright red as the gears turn in his head, and he stares at her right back. “I…what? You’re MiniCoop?”

She giggles, hiding her snickering behind a polite hand. “Don’t give me that look, when your username had the word hot dog in it three times.”

“That was…my dog’s name,” he says lamely, still too shocked and embarrassed to say anything else. He huffs. “Look, okay, I was not planning on using that profile ever again. It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Obviously,” she replies, still giggling.

He groans, scrubbing a hand down his face. When he looks at her again, her expression has turned slightly rueful as she nibbles on her lip.

“Um—listen, I didn’t reply because when you said you went to Brown too, and you’d read my post about anxiety, I just…I didn’t want you to be someone who knew me. Didn’t want to be judged.”

He’d honestly forgotten she’d stopped replying, and is surprised that she has any guilt over it. But at the wide look in her eye, he’s realizing that just might be her personality; perennially worried she’s upset anyone.

“It’s really okay,” he says. “I get that. I mean, I didn’t know who you were. But even if I did, I definitely wouldn’t judge you. I actually…admired it. What you talked about.”

It’s true; if anything, this just endears her to him more, her honesty and the self-care she talked about. Her lips press together thoughtfully, but she pivots quickly, her attention moving to scan the bookshelf. “Well. I think this is what you’re looking for,” she says, offering him a weathered manual.

“Thanks,” he says, after a moment. He swallows, trying to gather his courage, because this is the girl he’s been thinking about since October, and she looks especially beautiful against the light filtered through the stacks. “Uh, listen. “Would you want to…um. Hang out sometime? I mean, like, while I work on the bike?” He rushes to add. “Since I know you have an interest in mechanics, and, well—”

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” She interrupts, her lips tipped up in amusement.

He blows out a breath, not sure if she means about his haphazard attempt to ask her out, or the motorcycle. “No. None.”

Betty’s grin is nearly shy as she nods. “In that case, I would love to,” she replies, and Jughead decides he’ll have to thank his dad for the motorcycle one more time.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: one night stand and falling pregnant au

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It’s a morning like any other; she and Veronica rise early for their weekend roommate run, even if Veronica spends the entire time complaining that she doesn’t “do” public parks—half jokingly, but Betty knows there’s a part of her best friend that confidently, deliberately remains snobby—and then take turns showering.

Betty pads into the kitchen while Veronica takes the first pass at the bathroom. After setting up the coffee maker and it whirs to life, Betty presses the lever of the toaster down with one hand and turns on the radio with the other.

The local NPR station is running a story about plastics fibers found in salt water and what all countries have to do about ocean pollution, and she thinks to herself that she’s always disliked plastics.

They’re necessary, of course. Inevitable, really. But after a lifetime of trying to open impossible plastic packages, or the time she melted a plastic spatula on the stove because she was having a panic attack and probably nearly burned her apartment down—which, _surprisingly,_ didn’t help with the anxiety—and now this with the ocean pollution, she thinks they could do well to rid themselves of it wherever not necessary.

However, it turns out that _necessary_ will be sooner than she thinks.

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The toast pops up, and Betty scoots her chair back to get it. She pulls butter from the fridge, and as she swipes her knife over the path of the warmed bread, her stomach starts to churn.

She pauses, her neck jerked back in surprise, and moves a hand to her stomach.

It twists and curls again, like her stomach is being thrashed around by a tsunami wave. The smell of butter, normally a scent that brings nothing but joy, wafts through her nose, and she feels bile rise up in her throat. She barely has enough time to make it to the sink to hurl.

Veronica is at her side in an instant, appearing out of nowhere and dripping wet in a gray towel. “Oh my god,” she says, pushing Betty’s hair back, even though it’s already in a ponytail. “What happened? You were fine fifteen minutes ago.”

Betty’s eyes fall shut as she fights down a second wave. “Um, I don’t know. Might be one of those quick onset stomach bugs.”

“Oh, which one is that, again?” Veronica muses skeptically, her lips lifting in a slight grin. But a moment later, her perfectly arched eyebrows are back to their furrowed position. “Are you okay?”

“I feel fine,” Betty insists. “I mean, aside from the…” _Polite girls do not say the word vomit,_ she practically hears her mother say.

“Mass exodus of your small intestine?” Veronica supplies, almost ruefully.

“That one,” she nods, rubbing at her temples. The smell of it isn’t helping. She runs the water in the sink to flush it out, and briefly turns on the garbage disposal for good measure too. A moment later, it’s all whirled away.

“Let’s get you in bed,” Veronica says, after a thoughtful look. She presses the back of her hand to Betty’s forehead, frowning. “You don’t feel warm.”

“Well, it came on fast,” Betty sighs. “Maybe the fever is late to the game.”

A noise hums in the back of her roommate’s throat, but doesn’t push it as she shepherds Betty to her room. If it wasn’t a Saturday, she’d be fighting Veronica tooth and nail on this, but the only thing she had planned for the afternoon was a date with the fictional Henry Tilney, her favorite Austen leading man, and her dogeared copy of _Northanger Abbey,_ so she doesn’t protest the forced bedrest.

Veronica returns, now dressed in a typically immaculate black dress and heels, and puts a bowl by her bed. “I’m gonna blow dry my hair, and then I’ll cab down to Dean & DeLuca for some chicken soup, okay sweetie?”

Betty presses her book to her chest. “I really feel a lot better. You don’t have to do that.”

“You just attacked the kitchen sink with the inner workings of your stomach,” Veronica says dubiously. “Even you can get sick, Girl Wonder. So you do you with your book, and I’ll be back soon.”

Without letting Betty get in another word edgewise, Veronica’s dark heels are clicking away and the bedroom door is closing. And while Betty does feel better, it’s reserved for the moments where she remains absolutely still. So maybe the soup will help.

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It does. Or, rather, the sickness passes. Her fever never arrives, so Betty chalks it up to something she ate just not agreeing with her, and the morning run had probably exacerbated it. That’s reasonable.

And then it happens again, on Monday morning, when there was no early run.

This time, it’s while Betty is brushing her teeth of all things, because the smell of the toothpaste must lodge something loose in her stomach.

Veronica is standing in the doorway, her eyelash curler under her chin as she holds a studying hand there. “Are you having morning sickness?”

Betty looks up and over from her place by the toilet, her brain foggy with the fact that she’s once again spilled the contents of her stomach without any warning.

“What?” She asks, once she registers what Veronica has said. “No, no way.”

But Veronica’s eyes, already made wide by her makeup, are full and round. “Betty—”

“No,” she insists again, standing up and flushing the toilet. “That’s just…no. Not possible.”

Veronica gasps sarcastically and pulls out her phone. _“Immaculata?_ Oh my god, let me see who I still know at HuffPo. People will want to know that the Virgin Mary lives and breathes.”

“Stop, stop,” Betty says, laughing despite herself. “It’s just…I’m on the pill. And there hasn’t been anyone since Trev, so—”

“Yes, there has,” her best friend interrupts sharply, clearly confused and nearly looking worried. “McBroody, at the bar on Bleeker last month? Remember?”

Betty’s mouth drops open, and full panic fills Veronica’s face. “How drunk were you that you don’t remember?”

“No, no, I remember now,” Betty says, letting out a breath that seems to pull more than just air out of her.

She’d been doing her best not to think about that guy, because every time she does, she’s overwhelmed by the memories of his touch, the way he’d made sure she’d been cared for, the way he whispered little spots of want into her skin.

She flushes as the retroactive lust happens again and lets herself fall against the bathroom counter. “I just…I hadn’t…but I’m on the pill.”

“But you’re also on other medications,” Veronica says quietly. “Can’t that have an effect on, well, solubility?”

“They would’ve told me,” Betty says automatically, her voice pitching as her heart begins to stutter. “They would’ve told me, right?” She tries to retrace any memories she has of the pharmacy or doctor’s office when they prescribed her the medication for her anxiety, but nothing comes to mind.

And then it does.

A word that doesn’t often escape her defies the rules engrained by her mother. “Oh, fuck.”

.

.

.

Which is how she finds herself back at the pharmacy, this time stealed away in the handicapped bathroom with her best friend, who is absentmindedly and worriedly fingering her set of pearls, while Betty is desperately gripping the little piece of plastic that will define much more than it should.

Betty hates plastic, hates it so much, and now for reasons that go way beyond what feels like inconsequential ocean pollution.

She’s going to end up just like her mother and sister, pregnant before she’s had a chance to do anything else with her life. She never wanted to be them, but she never thought she’d had to have make this particular choice not to. God, doctors should be lining up to examine the prowess of the Cooper fertility.

The little plastic stick trembles in her hand, because, of course, her curse is the color pink.

It always has been.

.

.

.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: bughead freshman year, pre-canon, halloween

_It was a graveyard smash._

He lifts one hand through a curtain of orange and black tinsel streamers, making a path for himself into the gym, currently decorated top to bottom with an almost obsessive sense of care that screams _Betty Cooper._

The goofy but deeply relevant song _Monster Mash_ bounces across the echoing space, and a surprising number of kids are actually dancing to it. Mostly freshmen who don’t know better and seniors who no longer care, but they’re dancing all the same.

Jughead grins as he takes it all in, immediately crossing the path towards the food and refreshments table. He’s just pouring himself an almost sickly green cup of punch when he hears a light, familiarly tinkling voice in his ears. “Are you…the mummy of Buddy Holly?” 

He turns, eyes already rolling. “I’m Revenge of the Mummy-Nerd,” he sighs. It’d been thrown together hastily and on the cheap, but conceptually, he’s still into it, even if it might be something he’ll be explaining all night. He points to his body, wrapped up in toilet paper. “Mummy,” he says, and then drags his finger up to the thick, black framed glasses. “Nerd.” 

Betty laughs, throwing her head back, and giving him a long moment to appreciate her own costume. She’s dressed in full cowgirl gear, but then he notices little bits of yellow yarn sewn in amongst the bright gingham print. On her big red hat sits a couple of brown pom-poms further atop a pile of more yellow yarn, further confirming his theory.

He grins toothily. “Let me guess. Spaghetti Western?”

Her eyes shine with unmistakable glee. “You got it! I was starting to think it was too confusing. Everyone just keeps asking me if I’m the cowgirl from _Toy Story!”_

Jughead reaches forward and tugs on one of her little blonde braids. “Not Annie Oakley?” 

Betty bats his hand away, grinning. “Anyway. I didn’t think you were coming tonight, Juggie. Don’t you usually take your sister trick-or-treating?”

Grateful that he happens to be assembling a pyramid of ghost-shaped cookies on a paper plate as she asks, Jughead stifles his frown. He hasn’t told anyone yet—hell, he hasn’t even told Archie yet. Doesn’t know if he’ll be able to ever, because saying it makes it _real_ , and he still hasn’t adjusted to the eerie silence of the trailer, deeply empty without his sister’s record player. 

“Figured I’d try to do something different this year,” he says, shrugging, and attempting to keep his voice plain. “Plus, you’ve been decorating all week. The least I could do was come reap the rewards of someone else’s hard work.” 

“The _least_ indeed,” Betty muses, her lips pursed against a grin. She seems to fiddle, then, her fingers lacing and unlacing. “Is Archie here yet?”

He fights down a sigh at the obvious amount of nerves in her voice. Jughead had honestly been hoping this little Archie crush that bloomed last year was starting to fade. _Not that—it’s not like—well,_ he’s just getting really tired of seeing Betty mooning around. 

Lately, he’s been spending a lot of his time watching Betty watching Archie, and it’s starting to really rub him the wrong way. He just wants things to go back to the way they were, when it was just the three of them, watching movies that Archie hated, or riding their bikes around town—but he has a feeling that time of their lives is already a place they can’t go back to. 

And that realization has settled in eerily, coldly, under his skin, giving him gooseflesh like it’s the damn Twilight Zone. 

Of course, goddamn Archie, so oblivious he could have the piano labeled _Betty’s crush_ dropped on his head and still not get it, is ruining the whole dynamic. 

So Jughead tries not to grimace when he says, through a mouthful of cookie hastily shoved in his mouth, “He should be here pretty soon, I’d think.”

Betty looks mollified, her cheeks tinged pink. “Okay. Good.” 

“Hey,” Jughead says, nudging her and wanting to change the subject. “Are we still on for Fright Fest, later tonight? I downloaded _Halloween, Scream,_ and your _favorite,_ Betts,  _Nightmare on Elm Street.”_

Her eyes threaten to roll back in her head. “Not this joke again.”

“Not my fault your house is literally on Elm Street,” he says blithely, shrugging. “It’s always topical.”

She seems to be fighting down a grin. “Can’t we watch _Hocus Pocus,_ or something? The other ones are just so…scary.”

Jughead pretends to balk. “ _Fright_ Fest, Betts. Operative word here being _fright_. Plus, it’s Halloween. Don’t you want to get a little spooked?”

“Not particularly,” she sighs, although a faraway kind of thought seems to be scheming in her brain, and he’s always been uncomfortably good at reading her. If they watch something scary, she might just use it as an excuse to cuddle up against Archie, and then the whole point of this kind of escapist tradition is just  _moot_. 

So he blows out a noisy breath. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, we can watch _Hocus Pocus._ ”

She beams at him, her lips pink and her eyes so green, reaching forward to squeeze his arm, and he feels something dangerous and warm blooming somewhere in his stomach. Heat rushes up his neck, and he’s grateful that it’s covered up in toilet paper so she won’t see it. 

The song switches, the music opening with some kind of goofy, campy _mua-ha-ha,_ so loud and ominous he nearly jumps out his costume, much to his own embarrassment.He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so tightly wound; but Betty doesn’t even notice, her eyes flicking off around the gym. 

Halloween is, after all, the night of scares, nightmares, and horror. 

And as he watches her bounce off towards the entrance, having spotted Archie and his stuffed body-builder costume, realization clawing numbly at his insides, a thought dawning like horror, Jughead has his first ever, _real,_ bone-chilling Halloween fright. 

He shivers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: high school debate team. jug on the southside, betty on the north.

She meets the eye of her reflection, holds it, and then tightens her ponytail, not breaking. She wishes she had some kind of sports-parable-mantra, something to boost morale, or surge her veins with righteous determination, or—

“ _So_. You look like you’re experiencing the kind of carefree, extra-curricular fun we are supposed to be having,” comes a teasing voice from behind, and Betty just has to glance over her own shoulder’s reflection to see Veronica sashaying forward before twisting and hopping up on the cheap wooden vanity, immediately crossing one leg, a black-heeled foot dangling.

“I’m just trying to get ready,” Betty sighs, adjusting the hem of her navy-blue uniform top. “You know, focus. I want to win.”

“Well, someone should tell the Bee that focus and polyester do not mix,” Veronica drawls, picking at her own matching shirt. “I can’t breathe when my fabrics don’t.”

“Please, just save any arguments for Southside,” Betty says, nodding to herself once more before turning to face her best friend. “Remember, we _have_ to beat them.”

Veronica raises an eyebrow. “It’s in the bag, sweetie. Relax. The benefit of watching ones’ father living out an episode of _Law & Order _is that I observed many of the pros at work.”

Betty blows out a breath, a flash of last month’s debate burning against her lungs, a loud, deliberately loud, carrying voice; _so this is tax dollars at work, the cherry-picked intellect Stepford suburbia can offer._

The way he’d glanced over just then, a prickly kind of smirk thrown her way, as the pink-haired girl and the other dark-haired behemoth had snickered in tandem. _Thought it’d be at least a challenge._

She smooths her ponytail against the memory. “It’s just that one guy, he got in my head. He made me so mad last time. He’s such a…such a…”

“Wannabe Stephen-Kerouac-King self-insert fanboy?” Veronica supplies, a mirthless smile pulled tight against her lips. 

“I was going to say jerk,” Betty replies flatly, her expression to match. 

Veronica smiles in a way that shows her teeth. “That’s a strong word coming from you. What say you, shall we wipe the floor with them this time?” 

Betty grins back.

.

.

.

He steps up to the podium opposite her, his entire body lanky and slack against it, arms folded over it, all with an air of _somewhere better to be._

 _He has a stupid name,_ she thinks, straightening her shoulders. _And a stupid face._

One that barrels back at her, eyes ticking like a clock, lips quirked. At her. For a moment, she thinks he’s mocking her again, but then she realizes he’s just—smiling at her. She frowns, sure there’s a squirreled away tactic in there somewhere. 

No one that proud of being rude simply _smiles_. 

And then, a clearing of the throat, and Principle Weatherbee begins to speak, clarifying for the audience the prepared topics the students will be debating, Betty as the pro, her opponent— _Jughead_ —as the con. 

It’s heated, and he spends half the time still scrunched over his podium, but eventually, and with discernible pride, Weatherbee announces Betty the winner. 

Through a smattered applause, Jughead meets her halfway for the customary handshake. He doesn’t look annoyed, she thinks, as he offers her his hand. 

“That was fun,” he murmurs, a low voice that sends something unnameable down her spine. “You give hell, Cooper.”

“Just wanted to show you what _suburbia_ has to offer,” she replies in her primmest voice, and his eyes widen, just slightly, his lips warring for another grin. 

A moment passes, and Betty hears Veronica’s heels clicking against the wood floor, having stepped up to the podium for her own debate. Veronica coughs quietly, and Betty realizes she’s still shaking Jughead’s hand. Immediately, she drops it and, rod straight, marches off the stage, back to her side of the debate team.

Jughead takes his time wandering back to his own side, sinking into a seat next to the pink-haired girl, who offers him a strange look. He shrugs, and she shakes her head. 

Trev Brown turns to Betty as soon as she sits back down. “You did really great,” he tells her softly, but her attention is still on Jughead, trading eyes. 

He’s still smiling at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more drabbles! they do happen! let me know what you thought.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a little veronica headcanon musing. very short.

when veronica was a little girl, every year on the first day of school she’d get a single, perfect pearl. wrapped first in tiffany blue, opened next to a box of her favorite deep, black velvet, a color darker than her own eye. and there it was, shiny and opal, laid on a pillow of plum silk. 

every time with the note, _the world is your oyster. -daddy_

until the year she found her perfect shade of chanel red, until the year she knew the bubble of champagne and the burn of stolen thoughts, until the year she went to put on her very first secondary school uniform, laid out on her bed by an unseen hand. atop the tartan was her gift, same as always. 

only when she opened blue to black to plum, she didn’t see see a single, new kiss of a pearl, but all the old ones she’d been given, collected onto a perfect silver string with a diamond clasp. 

blue, black, and plum, her favorite colors of a bruise. she put it on, surprised to find it heavy. 

her parents had already left for vienna. the nanny bid her a good first day at school. the driver pulled down park, a leather backpack with a gold clasp gentle in her lap. her mother picked it up in paris. it was too small to hold her books.

that year, the note said, _the world is your oyster, but time for you to be its pearl._


End file.
